Me SCUBA diving in Australia's Coral Sea. Copyright (c) 2008 John Rumney/Eye to Eye Marine Encounters I'm headed to the Society of Environmental Journalists conference and am so excited! This is the BEST conference ever. Seriously. I have many great friends who will be there, and it's such a fantastic networking opportunity. I have never attended one of these conferences where it didn't pay off in assignments made after the fact from editors I met, or from the pitch slam - where you read aloud an article pitch in 60 seconds, and then a panel of editors gives feedback. In... Continue reading

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO, a vast pool of cold water sloshing around the northern Pacific ocean, was first discovered just fourteen years ago. It's existence has yet to make an imprint in public consciousness, in part because its effects are so varied. But Wendee Holtcamp, an excel...

Paul - the Panaque have been known but this particular species had never before been scientifically documented (they take a reference specimen or two, run DNA analyses, etc). Paulo, the commenter before you, is the scientist involved in the study so he should know! As he said, this particular one is quite unique. Plus, even though a few aquariusts or fish enthusiasts may know about them, they're relatively unknown to the general public. :)

Paulo Petry holds a new species of wood-eating armored catfish in Peru/ Copyright Paulo Petry ﻿We all know that termites eat wood. But a catfish? That’s right. Scientists recently captured the first live specimens of a wood-eating armored catfish in Peru, a species only known previousl...

Tom Wargo found homeless Daffy in 2001, and now helps feed over 2,000 pets throughout Georgia through Daffy's Pet Soup Kitchen. Credit: Tom Wargo With the U.S. unemployment rate nearing 10% and many others seriously struggling financially, sometimes beloved pets can go hungry. In other ca...

The bounty idea is intriguing. I've never heard of that to help rid a place of invasive species. Of course it worked wonders (sadly) to eliminate bears, cougars, and many other predators back in the "old days" that we are still trying to recover. I may try to do a post on the lamprey bounty concept - thanks!

Agency officials capture a non-native Burmese python/Credit Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission A python posse is on the move, hunting down invasive Burmese pythons that have invaded the Florida Everglades,The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission has issued permits to people they will tra...

A White Mike poster on the streets of West Hollywood, California/ Copyright (c) 2009 unurth.com Big bold color posters of "great white" sharks keep popping up throughout three major U.S. cities – Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. What’s next? Who is responsible? What is the rea...

I am writing an article on The Compact currently and am reading through The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices by Michael Brower and Warren Leon (Union of Concerned Scientists) and though I've not finished it, they used a computational model to analyze the myriad environmental impacts of various consumer choices. Essentially, it says that some things - including disposable napkins (and presumably TP) are drops in the bucket compared to other things such as the house and car we buy. They claim that the anti-consumerism can go too far. Is there any concern that your project could create a backlash and have the opposite effect of your intention? Perhaps some middle of the road, environmentally conscious people (or even conservatives) will read this "no TP!" and dismiss the whole project as "liberal craziness" rather than a means to make them think about the impact of their choices? Just some food for thought. :)

So Michelle and I had the talk about the consumption phase of the project last night, the one I was worrying about yesterday (see If I’m dead tomorrow, you know my wife killed me). But before I get to that I want to add something about the consumption rules that I forgot yesterday. The idea i...